Bad driving a disease, Chinese doctor says

A doctor in China is attempting to cure the country of bad driving by treating it like a disease.

Traffic accidents are now the leading cause of death for Chinese aged 15 to 44, the World Health Organisation saysPhoto: AP

9:12AM BST 15 Jul 2011

Dr Jin Huiqing has spent nearly three decades trying to figure out why some motorists seem more accident prone than others. He has translated his research into a lucrative business selling his road safety programme to Chinese municipalities.

Dr Jin's company, Anhui Sanlian Group, developed a three-pronged approach to road safety that involves a battery of tests to screen drivers, training with simulators and surveillance cameras to closely monitor roads for problems.

The eastern city of Jinan adopted the system and police in the provincial capital say traffic deaths have fallen by a third in the past five years.

He has studied the records of thousands of Chinese bus, van and taxi drivers, put dozens through neurological tests and examined hundreds of blood samples. Since last year, he has been trying to find gene markers for bad drivers.

"Cars can be fitted with the highest levels of equipment: safety belts, air bags, and so on. Roads can be more regulated. But people, how can you help them become better?" Dr Jin said in an interview in the central city of Hefei, where he is based. "People still need to be controlled, they must face restrictions."

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He tries to target the root cause of crashes by identifying the physical or psychological traits of poor drivers, such as risk-taking or poor response time under stress, and keeping them off the streets or ensuring they get adequate training.

The cost of traffic casualties is so high that accident-prone people should at least be barred from driving commercially, he said.

Traffic accidents are now the leading cause of death for Chinese aged 15 to 44, the World Health Organisation says.

"In China, in general, I think each day there will be over 300 people killed on the roads, which equals to one Boeing 747 aircraft crash each day. So that is pretty serious," said Ann Yuan, the China country director of the Global Road Safety Partnership, a grouping of business, civil society and government organisations.